Offstage
by Pendell
Summary: A long-deactivated animatronic suddenly awakens, and pulls everyone around him down the rabbit hole into a dark and mysterious journey to uncover his true identity. Soon it become clear that there is much more at risk than his own closure.
1. Chapter 1: Awake

_I am Howler the Wolf._ That was the first thing that ran through his mind when he woke up. He looked around, examining his surroundings. He was in a cold, dark, cement-floored room. It was quite small. There were shelves on the walls, and on them sat complex-looking mechanisms that he knew nothing about. Next to him was a pile of what looked like furry costumes that had fallen over.

Howler whimpered. He didn't know where he was, and he didn't know anything about himself other than the fact that his name was Howler the Wolf. His fear was a primal fear.

Then he heard voices, and realized he was not alone. He heard people(?) conversing beyond the walls of the room. He didn't understand most of what they were saying-the voices were muffled by the dense walls-but he could tell from the inflections that they were having a heated argument, whoever they were.

Howler didn't know whether to feel relieved or more terrified. He felt like he should take some kind of action. He was sitting, so he stood up. It wouldn't seem like much to anyone else, but to Howler it felt like he was lifting a two-ton weight. He had overwhelming thoughts of giving up right then and there. He didn't _want_ to move anywhere, he _wanted_ to curl up into a ball and cry, but he wasn't a baby. He didn't necessarily know what he actually _was,_ but it wasn't a baby.

Howler trembled involuntarily as he moved forward. He noticed that with each step, metallic clinking noises came from within him. Another question he hoped he would soon answer.

He stopped at the old wooden door at the other end of the room. It had faded blue paint chipping off of it. He reached his hand out towards the doorknob, but froze. His hand was covered in grey fur. And it wasn't really a hand. It looked more like a paw.

 _What on Earth is this?!_ Howler thought frantically. He then remembered his name. Howler the Wolf. Of _course_ he would have paws and fur, all wolves did, right? So why did this revelation come as such a shock to him? It was as though he wasn't supposed to be a wolf. _Then what_ am _I supposed to be?_ He didn't know, of course. He only knew his name.

#

"Gah! Give it back, you stupid rabbit!" Freddy yelled, grabbing at Bonnie. Bonnie smiled and tossed the top hat like a frisbee. It sailed through the air until Foxy jumped up and caught it with his hook. He landed on the floor and immediately broke into a mocking dance, spinning Freddy's hat around on his hook.

"Matey, ye won't be seein' much er this hat anytime soon," Foxy teased in his odd Pirate accent.

Freddy ran after Foxy, embarrassed. Before he reached Foxy, though, the pirate tossed it into the air again. This time Chica plucked it out of the air with her beak. She landed with her hands on her hips and her head cocked to the side. She grabbed the hat out of her mouth and looked at it curiously.

"Boy, this smells a lot like pizza!" She mocked. She slowly began to lift it to her beak again.

Freddy charged after her. "Don't you dare!" Again, before he reached Chica, it flew into the air. This time, though, a human hand grabbed it. It was Wanda, the night shift mechanic, instantly recognizable by her almost _neon_ purple hair highlights.

"You guys need to stop messing around like this," She said assertively with the angry glare of a parent who found their five-year-old coloring on the wall.

Foxy's ears drooped and he looked down. Bonnie scratched the back of his head and looked away. Chica stepped forward with a smile on her face. "Aw, come on. We were giving him some excersise. Look at him, he needs it!" She joked.

Freddy's face turned red. "Hey!" He shouted. He stomped over to Wanda. She held out his hat, and he snatched it away. He stormed off, grumbling.

Wanda sighed. "You four are so immature."

"Oh, what do you expect? Can't we have fun? We're kids!" Chica retorted.

"That was years ago. You need to grow up, animatronics or not." She paused, then seemed to remember something, adding on, "And you need to leave the night guards alone. How many times have I had to tell you-"

Chica interrupted her. "How can we?! The night guard is the one who ki-..." Chica stopped. Foxy and Bonnie turned their heads and stared at her. "... Who caused this."

There were a few seconds of silence. "No, he's not. That guy left a long time ago. He doesn't work here anymore."

"Well... How do you know he won't come back?"

"Why, simply to risk getting arrested? Unlikely."

Chica huffed and stormed off in the opposite direction as Freddy.

Wanda looked hopelessly at the two remaining animatronics. Bonnie and Foxy looked back at Wanda with the same expression. Then they wandered off in opposite directions. Wanda sighed, and shuffled back to her office, conveniently located near the three spare parts rooms.

As Wanda rubbed her forehead and sipped a paper cup of coffee, Howler opened the door to the room he was in.

Howler was trembling with anxiety as he slowly pushed the door open. He looked down the hall on either end. On the other side of the hall from the door there was a pane of glass. Behind it sat a young woman with purple highlights in her brunette hair sipping coffee in a swivel seat.

Wanda looked up from her drink out the window, and almost choked on her coffee. Outside was another animatronic, poking his head out of one of the spare parts rooms. One she had never seen before. She coughed a few times and slammed her cup on the table. She shot up from her seat and almost tripped as she ran to the door, coffee dribbling down her chin.

She burst out of the door and stopped, closely examining the new character. He was clearly very shy, having all but gone back inside and locked the door when she ran outside. He had those tell-tale lines from two costume pieces touching on various parts of his body, so that confirmed this was not a real anthropomorphic white wolf. That was usually a good sign.

"Hello?" Wanda asked in her best calm voice.

"Hhhhhhh..." Howler tried to speak, but his voice box was barely functional. He was stuck on the letter H, and even that quickly dissolved into inaudible static.

He snapped his head forward and that seemed to unjam it somewhat. He managed to say hello, but it was buggy and still had very wavering quality. "Hhhh-h-hello."

Wanda felt pity for the wolf animatronic. It was scared, shy, and seemingly quite buggy.

"Who are you?" She asked calmly.

"Hh-howl-Howler." He replied.

"Okay. Why don't you follow me, Howler? You seem glitchy. I'll fix you." Wanda steeped forward, and Howler flinched. She stopped and held out her hand. Howler looked at the offered hand hesitantly.

"W-wh-whwhwhooo are yyou?" Howler asked.

"Oh, I'm Wanda. I'm the mechanic here. I can fix you." She replied peacefully.

"F-ffix?" Howler wasn't sure how a mechanic could help a wolf, but he didn't have any other option, so he shuffled out of the room and closed the door.

He stepped forward, but Howler found that his legs were very shaky. He couldn't make it stop. He took another step, and something in his leg let out an audible snapping sound. Howler collapsed and cried out in pain.

Wanda rushed over to him immediately. She kneeled next to him. "Hey, you'll be alright. Come on, I'll help you." She grabbed him under his arms like a doll and helped him to stand up again. Howler's left leg had gone totally limp.

"It's alright. Lean on me, my office is right there anyways," Wanda offered.

Howler nodded, but only leaned against Wanda's side as little as he could manage. Wanda could've told him he didn't have to, but she saw he was trying to be as nice as he could. It was kind of cute.

She could tell just from the small amount of weight he leaned against her with that this animatronic was unusually light. And that was only one of her questions.


	2. Chapter 2: Introductions

Inside Wanda's office, Howler was instructed to lay down flat on the floor. Once he did so, Wanda went rummaging through cluttered drawers to find her box of drill bits.

"Aha! Sneaky little buggers!" Wanda exclaimed as she pulled the little red box out of her small fridge under her desk. How it ever got there is one of those mysteries that it is pointless to try and solve.

She sat down next to Howler and opened the box up, taking out a bit and sticking it onto an electric drill.

"What-what are yyyyou ggoing tto-to do with ththat?" Howler managed to sputter out.

"Well, I'm hoping I'll be able to use it to fix whatever problems you have inside you. I wouldn't be surprised if that's pretty much everything. I sure have my work set out for me, huh?" She smirked.

"Bbbut I-I'm a wwwolf. Ddrills won'ttt work." Howler replied.

"Oh." Wanda set the drill down for a moment and looked down at him pitifully. "Sorry to break it to you, but you're not actually a real wolf. In reality, you're an animatronic designed by The Fazbear Corporation to entertain little children." She stated quite bluntly.

"Oh…" Howler thought this over for a moment. "O-ok-kay then." He wasn't able to find any other kind of response. He wasn't really frightened or scared by this-it was either that or some kind of abomination of nature-and he wasn't really surprised by it either. All the pieces up until then fit into place nicely when you put it into that context. So, okay then.

Wanda cracked a smile. "You took that pretty well."

Howler managed a jittery smile that made a lot of his internal mechanisms whir stressfully, but said nothing.

Wanda nodded understandingly. She grabbed a tuft of Howler's fur and separated it. She picked up her drill, stuck it into the gap and spun it for a few seconds. Howler cringed uncomfortably at the sensation, as he could feel the screw spiraling out of his flesh, but there was no pain.

Wanda took the screw and carefully placed it next to her, making sure it wouldn't roll away. She then tugged Howler's fur, and with a quick click the front of Howler's abdomen was removed, revealing a mass of wires, metal beams, and more mechanical devices he knew nothing about and did not recognize in the slightest. It was strange to think that these odd electronics made him, that they were him. It felt wrong. Unnatural. He couldn't make the emotional connection in his mind that these were his own innards, even though the evidence was right there, plain as day.

Howler observed curiously as Wanda gawked over his insides. "This… This is completely different. I've never seen anything like this before," Wanda announced.

She looked up at a cream-colored metal filing cabinet sitting against the wall. "Well, no, maybe somewhere… Oh!" Wanda jumped to her feet and ran over to the cabinet. From the second drawer down, she pulled out a big, fat, manila file full of different colored papers of various sizes.

She plopped the file down on her desk and opened it. She flipped through the mass of papers and pulled out one specific page, which appeared to be a folded blueprint.

"This…" Wanda began, shaking the paper in her hand. "This is something special." She laid the blueprint on the floor and unfolded it. It was a map of all the parts inside an animatronic. Howler looked from the blueprint to his insides. The blueprint highly resembled his innards.

"This is an _old_ model from back in the early days. It's got pretty decent hardware and software, even by today's standards, but the problem was that it didn't have a very rugged design. Delicate electronics and insane children don't mix very well. I thought they were replaced with the current models after they all broke down… Guess I was wrong. Anyways, I don't have any experience with your model, so I might not get this a hundred percent right on the first go."

Howler nodded again, but was thinking very worrisome thoughts. Wanda's final sentence hadn't been very reassuring.

"Would you like it if I just put you into sleep mode while I do this?" Wanda asked. Howler nodded again. The last thing in the world he wanted to see-or feel, for that matter-was somebody tinkering around with his organs.

Wanda quickly stuck her hand inside his mechanics to flip the sleep mode switch. Even though it was only a split second, it was the most unpleasant sensation Howler thought there could be. There was again no pain, but he would have welcomed pain with open arms over this disturbing feeling. He grimaced in disgust and and intense discomfort, and then everything vanished, the world went away, and all became darkness.

#

Wanda had called it "Sleep Mode". But it wasn't really anything like sleep. It was more like being removed from your body. He was nowhere. And he wasn't really at nowhere. At least, not in a physical sense. Huh?

Then Howler found himself in a bedroom. The bed was at one end, set in a bed frame that had shelves filled with clutter. Next to the bed was a metal rack set against the wall which was overflowing with DVD's, VHS's, and Blu-Rays. The wall was a very plain white, as was the ceiling. There was a closet with a sliding oak door, and it stood open. There was a bookshelf with books on the upper shelves and junk on the lower ones. Howler moved around the room, but no movement was involved in the process.

Howler took a sharp breath as the door to the bedroom opened, and in walked a tall, slightly chubby boy with brown hair and green eyes. The boy walked right past him and flopped down on the bed.

There was a ringing sound. The boy lifted his head and stuck his hand in his pocket. He pulled out a small device with a bright screen that Howler had never seen before. He tapped a green button on the screen, and a boy's face appeared. He was red-haired and freckly. He waved his hand and said hello, and the brown-haired boy did the same.

"Hey," the boy on the screen said. "My little sister's birthday is coming up next week. She said she wanted you to come."

"Oh, yeah, sure!" Brown-hair exclaimed. Then he looked right at Howler. Howler started to panic, but he realized that the boy was actually looking at the bedroom door. He looked back at the phone. "Well, I mean, I'd probably have to ask my parents first."

The boy on the phone groaned. "You know, your parents are _way_ too overprotective!"

Brown-hair nodded. "Yeah, they-" the boy suddenly turned back to Howler. Howler tried to convince himself that he must be looking at the door again, but it seemed an awful lot like the boy was looking right into Howler's eyes.

He expressed a sense of urgency. It was something in his eyes. Howler wanted to do something-what, he wasn't very sure-but he found himself being suddenly pulled completely out of that world. Howler woke up.

#

He was back in Wanda's office. He hadn't ever left, of course. He saw Wanda placing his chest plate back on him, covering his animatronic parts. She looked to his face, saw he was once again conscious, and smiled.

"I did my best. I wouldn't call it perfect, but by God, it's better than it was before."

"Oh? Th-that's… Thank y-you." Howler responded with much more ease.

"It was nothing. At least I can understand what you're saying now. You sounded like a disabled person on a ham radio before." Wanda stated optimistically.

"N-nothing? No! Y-you did a g-great job! Really!" Howler exclaimed.

Wanda smiled. "You think so?"

Howler took a few seconds to climb up into a standing position. He took a few disoriented steps around, and there were no concerning sounds or intense pain. He looked down at her. "Yeah. Y-you did."

"Thanks…" Wanda said thoughtfully. There were a few seconds of silence.

"Well!" She clapped her hands together and jumped up. "I guess you should meet the others!"

"O-others?" Howler asked nervously.

"Well, yeah! You didn't think you were the only one, did you?"

"I… h-haven't really had t-time to think ab-b-bout that." Howler rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

"Well, come on and meet the gang! I'm sure they'll love you!" She waved for him to follow her, then strolled out of her office and down the hall.

Howler looked around the empty office nervously, then out the window at the closed blue door he'd emerged from only a few minutes (hours? How long had he been out for?) ago. He followed Wanda.

"Hello? Guys?" Wanda called out once she was in the main dining room. Chica poked her head out of a door to the backstage area. Bonnie poked his head out above hers. Foxy poked his head out above his. Freddy poked his head out above his.

"I've got somebody here I want you to meet." Wanda beckoned the four once-children. Chica stepped out, causing Bonnie, Foxy, and Freddy to collapse to the linoleum tile floor. The boys scrambled to get back up, then tried to act like none of that happened. They all scurried over to Wanda and looked around.

"Well? Where are they?" Bonnie asked.

"Is this some sort of joke?" Chica suspected. They never got to meet anybody.

Wanda looked behind her and saw that Howler was not with her. She noticed his head poking around the corner of the hall. He saw her see him, and quickly pulled his head back.

"Hold on just a sec'." Wanda said, walking over to where the wolf was hiding.

She looked at Howler with clear annoyance, and he shrank his neck and drooped his ears. Wanda thought that it looked cute, and couldn't help but smile a little.

"Come on!" She demanded.

"I… I… W-what if they don't like me?" He asked, clearly grasping at straws for an excuse.

Wanda sighed. She walked around behind Howler and began to push him. His feet slid across the tiles as he remained stiff as a board. Wanda pushed him into plain view of the four others and then forward a little more. His face was as red as a turnip, and his muzzle was scrunched back.

Wanda stepped to the side and waited. Howler stood silently, too shy to speak. Freddy was the first to greet him, stepping forward and smiling. "Well, hello! Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza! I'm Freddy!" He said innocently, before sticking out his paw to the newcomer. Howler slowly lifted his own and shook Freddy's quickly before returning it to his side. There was an awkward silence.

"So… what's your name?" Bonnie asked, coming up next to Freddy and sticking out his hand as well.

"Um, uh, uh, H-Howler. The W-wolf." He quickly shook Bonnie's hand.

Foxy stepped up next. "Where've you been all this time?" He asked, sticking out his hook.

"Uh… In the sp-spare parts r-room. T-turned off, I-I g-guess." Howler hesitated, then grabbed the hook awkwardly and shook it. Lastly, Chica stepped up.

Wanda thought, _Oh God, Chica, please don't be a bitch._ Chica had her hands on her hips and her head was cocked a little to the side, a sure sign of incoming bitchery. _Chica, please, please,_ please _don't be a bitch._

Chica smiled and stuck out her feathery hand. "Hi there, Howler!" She greeted warmly. Howler shook her hand. _Thank God,_ Wanda thought, relieved.

"So, how'd it happen?" Chica asked nonchalantly. _Oh fuck,_ Wanda thought. She put her face into her palms.

"H-huh? How'd w-what hap-ppen?" Howler replied.

"How'd you die?" Chica clarified.

"D-die?! I, uh, I d-don't really know… I-I only knew m-my name when I w-woke up." Howler responded uneasily. Chica gave him a suspicious glare.

"Well then, why don't you guys take your new friend on a tour of the building?" Wanda proposed, quickly changing the subject. She gave the four animatronics a furious look that said _You'd better be nice or you'll be in a world of hurt you couldn't possibly imagine._

"That's a great idea!" The four declared in forced enthusiasm. They grabbed Howler and pulled him along as they walked around the restaurant to show him all the halls and doors and rooms and places and things and stuff.

"This is going to be interesting," Wanda said to herself once she was alone in the dining area. _Very_ interesting.


	3. Chapter 3: Overheating

Dawn was approaching. Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy had shown Howler around their home with great enthusiasm, answering all his questions happily. Their world was rather small, but they were very proud of it. Even Chica relaxed somewhat.

At first, Howler had been incredibly meek, but after almost an hour, he had taught himself to relax. Eventually he assured himself they weren't going to try and kill him. They weren't feral wolves, after all.

"Any other questions? That's the whole place!" Freddy said once they'd come back to the kitchen.

"It, uh, i-it's pretty n-nice," Howler responded. He was genuine, but he wondered why they had totally passed over the hall that went to the security office. He wondered if it was a good idea to ask about that.

"Hey, why don't we have some pizza?" Chica suggested, already opening the freezer and taking out one of many prepared pizzas.

"Hm? W-we can eat that?" Howler mumbled, confused. He was pretty sure robots used gasoline or electricity, not pizza. Nobody heard him.

"Ooh, I'll take some!" Bonnie exclaimed.

"Count me in!" followed Freddy.

Foxy eyed Howler. "Well, Matey? Ye wanna have a slice?"

Howler stared blankly back for a few seconds. "Uh, s-sure, I guess."

Chica slid the pizza into one of the large industrial ovens and turned the knob. Within seconds, the room was filled with the small of tomato, basil, melting cheese, and sizzling pepperoni. The animatronics around Howler took long satisfied breaths. Howler tried to mimic them. It was a bad idea. His sensory circuits had collected quite a bit of dust from all those years in the closet. So when the strong scent of cooking pizza hit him, they were overwhelmed.

The chip suddenly heated up to an insane extent, causing it to short out, sending a large electric pulse out into the rest of Howler's circuits. The wolf jerked his head back and blinked rapidly for a moment, then stumbled back against the wall, shaking his head like he'd just been punched and was seeing stars. As a matter of fact, he was seeing sparks.

"Whoa! Hey! Are you okay?" Bonnie, being the most empathetic of the group, ran over to Howler immediately. The others followed with caution.

Howler suddenly went limp as a spark shot out of the gap between the base of his neck and his shoulder. He collapsed to the floor, his eyes fading to darkness.

"What?! What happened to him?!" Bonnie cried out in a mix of confusion and concern. He looked up at the others.

"Don't ask me!" Chica said, shrugging, though she did look a _little_ worried.

"I'll go get Wanda!" Freddy ran off.

#

Wanda was just starting to get relaxed - physically; mentally, she was still all over the place - after that massive bit of excitement. She was getting comfy in her chair, and drinking what little was left of her coffee; most of it was now dripping onto the floor. She would have to clean that up before she left.

Then Freddy burst through her door in a clear panic, making her jump out of her seat once again.

"What? What is it?" She barked, quite annoyed.

"It's Howler! He's blacked out in the kitchen; I don't know what happened!" Freddy informed her.

Wanda did not hesitate; she grabbed her red tool chest and ran past Freddy and down the hall.

She stopped at the kitchen entrance and evaluated the situation before her. Howler lay slumped against a wall like a drunk, three animatronics crowded around him.

"Move," Wanda instructed. Bonnie, Foxy, and Chica did so.

Wanda dropped her toolbox on the floor and sat down on her knees. She pulled a small back battery out of the chest with two copper clamps extending from the poles. She grabbed these clamps by their rubber and touched the metal pieces together. They lit up like a small cigarette lighter with electric current.

Wanda set these on the ground and began to delicately lift off Howler's head mask. Underneath was an intimidating mass of cables and green computer chips. She pulled some of these apart, and a small puff of black smoke billowed from the gap. She reached within the gap, disconnected some kind of cable, and pulled out a large chipset board. In the center of the board was a large piece of shiny metal that stood higher than the other components. The CPU. It had the words, "Texas Instruments" inscribed on its surface. It also bore a prominent scorch mark that went diagonally across the surface of the chip, which most likely wasn't an aesthetic choice by the developers.

She gently pried this piece out of the motherboard and then tossed it carelessly aside.

"He could use an upgrade anyways," Wanda said as she took from her toolbox a little plastic container. She opened it and inside was a much shinier, newer-looking chip with the word, "Intel" inscribed on it. She popped this into the motherboard and put it back inside Howler's head, and slid his head back on.

This done, Wanda took a moment to relax and smell the roses, er, pizza. "Hmm... Can you help me get him out of this room? I think I know what happened."

The animatronics complied, helping Wanda drag Howler out of the kitchen and down the hall a little bit. He didn't twitch or move a single bit. Wanda knew full well that he wouldn't, but it was still unsettling to her. Like dragging a dead body.

As they stopped in the hall, Wanda took her battery and stuck the clamps on either side of Howler's neck. There was an electric fizzing sound, and then a mechanical whirring sound. His eyes flickered to life, and he looked around.

"W-w-what happened to me?" He asked, clearly distressed.

"You blew out your old processor. I knew it wasn't the best idea to leave it in, but I didn't think it'd go out so soon or as explosively. You're lucky, it _could_ have fried your entire system," Wanda explained.

Bonnie asked the question that was on all their minds. "What made it burn out?"

"The pizza."

Everyone, Howler included, responded with the same "Huh?"

"See, you said you barely remember anything but your name. That's all the data your systems are storing. Your sensory apparatus - the stuff that picks up sights, sounds - create new data for smells the same as anything else. But the complex multiple scents of cooking pizza overloaded it. Too much data to sort out too quickly after who knows how many years of dormancy."

Howler nodded, though he wasn't sure he really understood. "Oh. O-okay then."

Wanda smiled and helped Howler to his feet.

"Well, why don't we all-" Wanda was cut off as a ringing tone played loudly through the speakers in the ceiling.

"Six AM? Already?" Chica asked, turning her head to the clock on the wall.

"W-what does s-six AM m-mean?" Howler asked.

"For you... I don't know," Chica said. This was going to be a problem.


End file.
